The Impact of Web 2.0 on Archives

The impact of Web 2.0 on archives

Jane Stevenson, The Archives Hub

02/11/2010

Look-Here! Project workshop on Web 2.0

What does Web 2.0 mean for the archives profession?

– introduction– the unknown – the personal and the professional– letting go– making the most of our environment– preservation issues– innovation– conclusion

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Some figures...

Pew Internet: http://www.rahmn.com/pew-study-shows-growth-in-use-of-online-social-networks-not-just-for-kids-anymore/

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http://www.medicalbillingandcoding.org/facts-about-the-internet/

August 2010

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The unknown

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A leap of faith?

• “There were no formal usability studies.” (Case studies: blog)

• “..colleagues strong-armed me into joining.” (Case studies: Facebook)

• “[It] started as an experiment…it was on a whim that our Director of Online Strategy signed us up for an account.” (Case studies: Twitter)

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Joining the Web 2.0 world

• Often a lack of preparation, more experimentation

• Sometimes reverse-engineering business drivers to fit

• What can be gained from embedding this into your strategy?

• What can be gained from a spirit of adventure?• The impact of changing expectations

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An intellectual exercise?• Twitter for Museums: Strategies and Tactics

for Success– “a 412-page hardback book, containing 25

practical, how-to articles and case studies from leading international museum professionals and a highly-experienced International Advisory Board”

• "A Different Kind of Web: New Connections between Archives and Our Users with Web 2.0”

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Weighing it up

• If you can do it quickly, then finding out whether it works by doing it *might* be more fruitful than discussion, debate, reports, background reading and attempting impact analysis before the event.

• But think about what you are committing to: – A good blog requires regular blog posts– Building a following on Twitter requires regular

tweets– Providing images on Flickr or videos on YouTube does

not require regular effort, but IPR is an issue02/11/2010

The personal and the professional

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“I have found that one of the most significant challenges with using Facebook is striking a balance between your own personal and private persona and the persona and role the individual plays as an information provider and advocate for their repository and its holdings via Facebook.” (Case study: Facebook)

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Informal approaches

• Blending of professional and personal• Personality and informality is part of the image• What is appropriate?• What do we feel comfortable with?• Is it easier for ‘digital natives’?

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Letting go

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The issue of control

• Control of...– the archive over time - preservation – the handling of the archive - access– the description of the archive – potential access– the sense of the archive– the reputation of the archive

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The values we hold dear...

Concerns of the archivist• Authority• Integrity• Reliability• Expertise• Reputation

Benefits of Web 2.0• More users• Added value• Greater access• Numerous contexts• Reputation• Networking• Professional support• Dialogue

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People power

• Individual points of view matter• “By forgoing formal classification, tags enable

a huge amount of user-produced organizational value, at vanishingly small cost.” (Clay Shirky)

• “Each individual categorization scheme is worth less than a professional categorization scheme. But there are many, many more of them.” (Schachter)

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Crowd-sourcing

• The “wisdom of crowds” may be controversial• The power of crowds is unarguable:– http://www.oldweather.org/classify(...at least in theory)

• Some data versus no data...?

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http://www.oldweather.org

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Making the most of our environment

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We want to:

• Grow our audience• Diversify our audience• Show that archives are relevant and meaningful• Encourage active engagement

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So we need to:

• Move from the passive to the active and inclusive

• Understand our new/potential users • Take some risks• Let go a bit!

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Web 2.0 can help with

• Democratising• Building networks• Professional support• Sharing• Making friends

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A recent UK study Higher Education in a Web 2.0 World, concludes that Web 2.0 has a profound effect on the behaviour of students, in particular encouraging a strong sense of communities of interest and a greater tendency to share and participate than previous generations. The report concludes that the “world they [the students] encounter in higher education has been constructed on a wholly different set of norms.”

Ann Hughes (Bellevue Consultancy), “Higher Education in a Web 2.0 World”. (2009) http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/publications/heweb20rptv1.pdf

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“Media that's targeted at you but doesn't include you may not be worth sitting still for”Clay Shirky

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Blogs provide a new type of communication

• DNA and social responsibility blog http://dnaandsocialresponsibility.blogspot.com/

• PaxCat project for Peace Archiveshttp://commonwealarchives.wordpress.com/

• Kew Trainee’s blog• http://www.kew.org/news/kew-blogs/introdu

cing-the-new-archives-graduate-trainee.htm

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Twitter enables conversation & networking

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YouTube and Flickr access mass markets

• University of Glasgow YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TgXVHinLwM&feature=related

• National Maritime Museum Flickr:http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalmaritimemuseum/

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But its not all a bed of roses...

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Some thorny issues?

• Is it permanent?• Is it interoperable?• Is it transparent?• Is it using standards?• Is it open?• It is trustworthy?

• And how on earth do we measure its impact?02/11/2010

Preservation Issues

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Preservation

• Who is responsible? What should be preserved?• Can we address preservation early in the life-

cycle?• Might scholars have a role in this (around their

area of research)?• What about the importance of context?• Technically, many Web 2.0 channels are not

difficult to archive, at least in a basic sense (LoC – Twitter)

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Preservation

• http://archivingsocialmedia.org/• Most people don’t pay attention to what

software and hardware are doing with their stuff (Chris Prom)

• So who is archiving their social media content at the moment....?

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• ...CocaCola!• http://www.hanzoarchives.com/• Hanzo provides “internet memory” and “real-time

capture and playback” of your websites. Our superior crawl and archiving technology can capture your entire site with Flash and video streaming media. We lead in the provision of webarchives using state of the art software to capture your online presence on Social Web platforms and can reliably playback archived content in their native form.

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Innovation

Innovation

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Innovation

• Leading edge or trailing edge?• Does the ‘mainstream’ of archivists have the

enthusiasm, have the desire, to engage with Web 2.0?

• Is it a question of time? Is it a question of priorities?

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Some philosophical musings

• Traditionally we organise archives in advance of the researcher using them

• If a user wants something that hasn’t been described/categorised/indexed in the way they are thinking about it then...?

• The archive is what it is, however we choose to describe it. Or does the naming of the world change it?

• Will differences in expression change the nature of archives?

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Where to now?

The internet will be a thriving, low-cost network of billions of devices by 2020, says a major survey of leading technology thinkers.

• The Pew report on the future internet surveyed 742 experts in the fields of computing, politics and business.

• More than half of respondents had a positive vision of the net's future but 46% had serious reservations.

• Almost 60% said that a counter culture of Luddites would emerge, some resorting to violence.

Pew Report from 2006: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5370688.stm

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Conclusion: Web 2.0 is a

mindset

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Useful Stuff

• Pew Internet: http://pewresearch.org/• Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies: 15

mind blowing facts about the internet http://www.medicalbillingandcoding.org/facts-about-the-internet/

• Twitter for Museums http://www.museumsetc.com/?p=1501

• A Different Kind of Web: New Connections between Archives and Our Users with Web 2.0 (ed. Kate Theimer…coming soon)

• twitter.com/archiveshub• archiveshub/blog/ 02/11/2010